We may have reached a point in history where the trajectory that democracy has taken needs to change dramatically, if it is to survive as a respected concept.

Most readers will have an idea of what is meant by the word “democracy”. In many cases, it will be a concept that is so indistinguishable from “electoral politics” that it seems almost contrarian to de-link the two. They’re plainly not the same thing. North Korea and Iran hold elections. On the other hand, very democratic bodies often, correctly, treat the point at which things need to go to a vote as an indictment of their failure to reach a deep consensus.

So much commentary that purports to be about quality of our democracy is, in reality, political advocacy cloaked in a flimsy ethical costume. A call for “a more democratic decision” is often a code for “I want the decision to be made in a way that is more likely to result in my preferred outcome”.

1) Democracy is where the best-achievable consensus among the populace get the governance that they actually want to have over a period of time.

2) Electoral politics (with a few caveats in a good representative democracy) is where we all get the government that that the voters (often a minority) *say* they want on one particular day. It’s not exactly the same thing as “democracy”.

TL;DR version:1) leaving the EU could work2) deciding to do so with a referendum guarantees it won’t & will also be damaging3) using a 2nd referendum to exit #Brexit would make a v bad situation even worse4) Exit-Brexit is a job for parliament alonehttps://t.co/c4mgZacdsf

Yesterday, in what was a big milestone for me, I handed in the final copy of the text of my book, which is provisionally titled ‘Save Democracy – Abolish Voting’.

It will be published at some point over the next month or so (date tbc) by The Democratic Society. It’s their first publication in a series entitled “Ideas of Democracy”, and I hope, the first of many.

In advance of the launch (you will be able to buy it in print or as an e-book), I’ll be posting a few samples here, but in the meantime, here’s the draft blurb from the back cover to give you a flavour of what to expect:

“There is a direct link between [the failure of representative democracy] and the degree to which plebiscitary democracy is seen as being an acceptable option. The popularity of referendums is a symptom more than it is the cause of our current problems.”

In this post, from 2007, I forecast that New Labour were in danger of begetting the current catastrophe. The article also predicted that the Lib-Dems would probably not go into coalition with Labour (and why), and readers may want to note the identity of the nightmare ‘back seat driver‘ that a mandated parliamentary party would be forced to take direction from….